In a recent announcement, Intel has revealed that it will be launching optical cable variants of its 10Gbps Thunderbolt interconnect standard later this year, with promises that the technology will achieve even higher transmission speeds in the future.

Thunderbolt, originally codenamed "Light Peak," was co-developed by Apple and Intel and is considered a faster alternative to USB 3.0. The technology was originally designed to utilize optical cables as its defacto hardware standard. Unfortunately, optical cabling was abandoned for much more cost-efficient copper cabling. The substitution still provided Intel and Apple with 10Gbps of bidirectional bandwidth, however the tradeoff is that copper cabling can only reach approximately 6 meters (~19.6 feet) at its theoretical maximum and won't be able to scale beyond 10Gbps.

On the bright side, Intel executives say optical cables will be good for data transfers over longer distances of 10 meters (~32.8 feet) - possibly even "tens of meters." But according to Intel spokesperson Dave Salvatore, however, devices connected at this distance wouldn't be able to receive adequate power because impedance issues would make sending up to 10W impractical.

Nevertheless, existing Thunderbolt ports on Apple’s Mac computers will be compatible with the upcoming optical cables. Users will be able to purchase existing Thunderbolt products and switch from copper to optical cabling without any need for hardware revision changes, firmware changes, etc.

Thunderbolt optical cabling will be released in the second half of this year, but is expected to be limited to very select usage scenarios with particular needs to deploy several hundred feed of optical cabling (see: enterprise and professional contracting purposes). Analysts suggest that Intel's optical Thunderbolt cables would be expensive as well, considering that the company cited optical cabling as one of the reasons for its decision to launch the standard on copper cabling in the first place.

Intel has also stated that it is currently developing a Thunderbolt for PCI-Express 3.0 protocol, which would be able to push data significantly faster at 8GT/s (gigatransfers-per-second) compared to PCI-Express 2.0's transfer speed of 5GT/s (gigatransfers-per-second).

Sony has introduced its new VAIO Z series 13-incher with a twist. The Z is Sony’s first notebook to feature Light Peak technology, which enables it to use external graphics housed in an optional media dock.

Intrigued? Well, AMD pioneered the external graphics concept some three years ago with its Puma platform, but it found few takers for its XGP system. However Sony’s Power Media Dock relies on Light Peak to communicate with the external HD 6650 core. When it’s not connected, the VAIO Z sticks to Intel HD 3000 graphics. The dock also houses USB 3.0, VGA and HDMI ports, along with a slim 5.25-inch bay for some optics.

As for the laptop itself, we are looking at a slim and stylish 13.1-incher, with a high resolution 1600x900 screen. It weighs just 1.2kg and it measures 16.6mm on the waistline. It comes with a choice of Intel Core i5 and i7 processors and a wide range of options, including the dock, SSDs and other toys.

It’s an impressive piece of kit, but as you might have guessed, it also packs a hefty price tag. The base will set you back more than $2,300. This includes a 128GB SSD, but you will have to pay more than $600 extra for the dock. All in all, we don’t see many takers.